There is great confusion in our political discourse today. “Former” Communists in Russia are sounding more and more like conservatives. The same might be said of “former” Communists in the United States. Everyone talks...

On February 5, 2013, a bullet almost ended the life of Lars Hedegaard, one of the leading champions of free speech in the world, and a dear friend. Danish police have now made an arrest in the case -- in Istanbul.

Would-be assassin of Lars Hedegaard may have been holy warrior in Syria

A 26-year-old Lebanese man accused of an attempt on the life of Danish journalist and Dispatch International editor Lars Hedegaard in February 2013 was arrested in Turkey five days ago. According to press reports, he is connected with extremist Islamic circles in Denmark and Sweden and has probably taken part in the fighting in Syria.

DVIDS/US Navy photo by Fireman Roderick Eubanks: Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry launches a Tomahawk missile in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn on March 19, 2011. This was one of approximately 110 cruise missiles fired from U.S. and British ships and submarines that targeted about 20 radar and anti-aircraft sites along Libya’s Mediterranean coast.

This week's syndicated column

More than Benghazi skeletons should haunt Hillary Clinton's expected 2016 presidential bid. It now seems that the entire war in Libya -- where thousands died in a civil war in which no U.S. interest was at stake -- might well have been averted on her watch and, of course, that of President Obama's. How? In March 2011, immediately after NATO's punishing bombing campaign began, Muammar Qaddafi was "ready to step aside," says retired Rear Admiral Charles R. Kubic, U.S. Navy. "He was willing to go...

Browsing through the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings on "Subversive Involvement in Disruption of 1968 Democratic Party National Convention, Part 1," I came across fascinating Page 2260 (screenshot above). It is testimony from committee staffer James L. Gallagher, who was discussing some of the 82 Old Left to New Left groups and publications (some with ties to foreign Communists) the Committee had identified as fomenting mayhem and violence at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Ramparts was the ninth group on the short list. (Note: Both the convention "disruption" and this congressional hearing took place in 1968; David Horowitz was not yet editor of Ramparts. By his own account, Horowitz was not part of the Ramparts contingent that travelled to Chicago for the convention.)
There are several points of historical interest in this testimony....

On November 16, 1933, FDR “normalized” relations with the USSR in spite of overwhelming evidence that USSR was anything but a “normal” state. On the contrary, it was a self-declared revolutionary entity openly (and covertly) dedicated to the subversion and overthrow of non-Communist nations. The US-USSR agreement included Soviet promises not to foment the overthrow of our Constitution, not to support agents attempting to overthrow our Constitution, and the like – all of which was already underway and, after the agreement, would only increase. Maintaining this diplomatic (later military) relationship, then, required looking the other way, the sustained denial of the facts, and even outright lies – a pattern of behavior, I argue in American Betrayal, that ultimately helped subvert our government, and even our nation’s character.

The important-sounding Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union has recently reiterated “its strong support for Ukraine’s unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.”

Poor, destabilized, post-putsch Ukraine is to be congratulated for receiving something none of the 28 countries that actually belongs to the EU ever does: support for its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. (“Unity” is a more complicated matter, given the EU’s reflexive pox on separatist movements that might prefigure the breakup of the EU itself.) As the world’s pre-eminent transnational entity since the breakup of the USSR, the EU is all about eradicating its members’ sovereignty, independence and borders.

This, of course, is not something most Americans are aware of. When we hear talk of “Europe” vs. Russia, or the importance of extending “European values,”...

There is nothing theoretical about the European Union's plans to eradicate the nation-states of Europe as sovereign states. These plans are becoming "reality," as the London Telegraph story below explains, and despite all assurances provided by any so-called "opt-out" clause. Meanhile, the emerging shape of federal Europe also shows Western concerns over Russian violations of Ukrainian "sovereignty" to be camouflage for something else. The last thing the EU empire wants to do is safeguard any state's "sovereignty," thus preserving its independence of Brussels. This is not to put a gloss on Putin's opportunism, however, or to recast his motives. It should, on the other hand, bring Brussels' motives in Ukraine under more informed scrutiny.

Not one but several of the lowpoints of what Vladimir Bukovsky & Pavel Stroilov have called a "Soviet-style propaganda campaign" against American Betrayal, what Jed Babbin tagged a "disinformation campaign," and what M. Stanton Evans has described as my "mugging" were logged by The American Thinker website edited by Thomas Lifson.

There was the (1) unsubstantiated parroting of the lies, distortions and fabrications (all debunked here) in an otherwise positive review (which, not incidentally, included the reviewer's declaration that he was now persuaded that Harry Hopkins was an agent of Soviet influence inside the Roosevelt White House); there was the (2) rapid enforcement action by Rado. publicly whacking the positive reviewer (and, of course, my book again in one of a blizzard of Rado-Horo attack pieces); there was (3,4) not one but two other attacks posted at American Thinker by writers who actually admitted in print not to have read my book at all; and 5) lowest of all, there was Thomas...

When Brandeis University withdrew an honorary degree for Ayaan Hirsi Ali after a student-professor firestorm branded her an “Islamophobe,” the campus in effect declared itself an outpost of Islamic law, American-style. Officially, Brandeis is now a place where critics of Islam – “blasphemers” and “apostates,” according to Islamic law – are scorned and rejected.

Not that Brandeis put it that way in its unsigned announcement about Hirsi Ali’s dis-invitation, which notes: “She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world. That said, we cannot overlook … her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.”

Whether the Cold War is back, it’s an apt moment to strike up a wider conversation about a couple of central questions from my book American Betrayal. Why did the West fail to claim an ideological or moral victory at the apparent end of the Cold War? Did the West really even win the Cold War?

If we go back in time and listen, we hear no consensus click over signs that an unalloyed U.S.-led triumph over communist ideology had taken place; nor do we find a sense of national thanksgiving for the forces of good – or, at least, for the forces of better – in their triumph over the forces of a non-abstract evil as manifested in Gulag or KGB or famine or purge history. “Mustn’t gloat”...